Mechanical Engineering Intern, Spring 2027

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• Role: Engineering / Mechanical
• School year: Any
• Visa: US citizen/visa only

About Dispatch

Dispatch is building refurbishable reentry vehicles for in-space manufacturing. Spark-1 is our first vehicle, a 150 kg spacecraft that hosts payloads in orbit and brings them back to Earth.

Our vehicles are designed, built, and operated in-house, from spacecraft systems and flight software through reentry and recovery.

About This Role

Internships at Dispatch are in person in San Francisco. This posting is for Spring 2027. The summer position is filled. Candidates must be actively pursuing an undergraduate or graduate degree. Due to U.S. export control requirements, candidates must be a U.S. person (U.S. citizen or permanent resident). We are unable to sponsor visas.

The Mechanical team is responsible for the structure, mechanisms, payload accommodation, and thermal protection system integration that carry Spark-1 through launch, on-orbit operations, reentry, and recovery.

Interns at Dispatch work directly on problems that affect upcoming missions. You'll own meaningful technical work and collaborate closely with engineers across thermal, avionics, and vehicle systems as we design, test, and operate Spark-1.

Responsibilities

• Own or contribute to the design of primary structure, secondary structure, and mechanisms for Spark-1

• Perform structural analysis by hand calculation and FEA for launch, on-orbit, reentry, and recovery load environments

• Produce drawing packages with GD&T and work with machine shops and vendors through fabrication, inspection, and assembly

• Design, build, and test deployable mechanisms, hold-down and release devices, payload accommodation hardware, and test fixtures